Former New York Police Department detective Pat Brosnan said any allegations that police officers are deliberately slowing down their response to crime in an attempt to protest police reforms are “1,000% wrong.”
During a Monday appearance on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” Brosnan said the uptick in crime is due to bad policies being put in place that aren’t allowing law enforcement officers to do their jobs.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York City Police Commissioner Dermot Shea have also denied a slowdown is taking place.
In response to the allegations, the NYPD issued a statement: “The NYPD has been here for the people of New York in the past, we are here for them today, and we will be here for them tomorrow.”
Brosnan said the “100% uptick in gun violence, meaning twice as many New Yorkers will be shot versus this time last year,” is due to the defund the police movement.
He said the defunding led to the disbandment of the anti-crime unit that takes guns off the streets, caused lawyers to stop prosecuting certain crimes, allowed criminals to be released from jails and has created a “fully empowered criminal.”
He said the combination of changes “desecrated the NYPD.”
“And just when it couldn’t get worse, they drop the diaphragm law on us in mid-August like a hand grenade,” he said of the new law that prohibits an officer from constricting an offender’s diaphragm when making an arrest.
He said criminals are carrying guns now “because they can.”
“They can because no one is searching them,” he said. “No one is searching them because of disbandment. Disbandment was part of the defunding. It’s this vicious cycle, but the reality of it is, they are empowered.”
He said criminals “know they can carry a loaded gun in their waistband with complete impunity because the people that normally would search them are now molting behind a desk in headquarters.”
Shea made a similar point in a statement he issued about a system “that continues to let criminals back on the streets.”
Brosnan said police officers are struggling to perform because they don’t feel that politicians have their backs or that laws support them. He noted that tools they relied on before have been stripped away from them. He said those factors have caused a “level of hesitation like we have never, ever seen before.”
“I hate to admit it,” he said. “It’s sad but true.”
He said it was outrageous when people were throwing water at uniformed officers last October. Now, he said they are “heaving bricks” at law enforcement and spitting in their faces.
He ripped the “level of vicious vitriol that has permeated society today with the disregard for the rule of law.”
He warned that the day will come when the “pendulum will swing to the point where lawlessness will rule.”
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